The semiconductor industry has recently experienced technological advances that have permitted dramatic increases in circuit density and complexity, and equally dramatic decreases in power consumption and package sizes. Present semiconductor technology now permits single-chip microprocessors with many millions of transistors, operating at speeds of hundreds of millions of instructions per second to be packaged in relatively small, air-cooled semiconductor device packages. A by-product of these technological advances has been an increase in the complexity of manufacturing of the devices, which has been accompanied by increased pressure to produce consistent and affordable products.
As the manufacturing processes for semiconductor devices and integrated circuits increase in complexity, methods for testing and debugging these devices become increasingly important. Not only is it important to ensure that individual chips are functional, it is also important to ensure that batches of chips perform consistently. In addition, the ability to detect a defective manufacturing process early is helpful for reducing the number of defective devices manufactured.
One type of semiconductor analysis involves conveniently directing perturbation, such as laser light, to a semiconductor device under test (DUT). When performing such analysis, however, there are many issues to be managed. These issues include concerns such as laser leakage, calibration problems, and functional deficiencies. Further, there is a need for convenient approaches to presenting various types of perturbation signals to the DUT, which can be particularly challenging when the analysis of the DUT is to be performed in a chamber or other arrangement that makes access to the DUT difficult.